Interview with Earl Tolton Harris

Earl Tolton Harris was interviewed on November 19, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah and Idaho.

FH:Would you please give your [full] name?

EH:My name is Earl Tolton Harris.

FH:How is your middle name spelled?

EH:[It is spelled] T-O-L-T-O-N.

arris

FH:What is your birth date?

EH:My birth date is November 7, 1889.

FH:[Where were] you born?

EH:I was born in Beaver [Beaver County] Utah.

FH:What was your father's name?

EH:My father's name was Daniel Duane Harris.is

FH:[What was] your mother's [full] name?

EH:My mother's name was Frances Elizabeth (Tolton) [Harris].

FH:Will you tell something you remember from your early childhood?

EH:The first home I remember living in was a little old log cabin with a dirt floor and a dirt roof [in North Creek]. Every time it rained we had pans sitting 00:02:00all over the house in different places and on the beds to catch the leaks in the house. We lived in that until I was six or seven years old. I was a sickly little fellow and my liver went bad on me. I was under the doctor's care. I used to get nightmares all of the time -- even in the daytime if I had to sleep. I had the scurvy off and on until I was about fourteen years old. During my adolescent [years], I came out of it and was quite healthy from then on.

FH:I guess you could say you outgrew it.

EH:I guess that is what it would be, [but] up until [I was in] high school I was quite sickly.

FH:Tell about your [education].

EH:First, we went to what we called the little rock schoolhouse. It was a block and a half from our home. I went there about two years, if I remember right. The first teacher was Kitty White. I was left handed and the main thing I remember about her was when I started to write left handed, she would whack me over the knuckles with a ruler. She broke me from writing left handed. From the third 00:04:00grade on, I wrote right handed, [but pitched baseball left handed]. I can't write with the left hand now. That is about all I can remember about her.

We moved to a larger school -- what we called the Belnap School. It was four blocks from home. In the fourth grade, Mamie Lindsey was the teacher. Ezra Barton was the fifth grade teacher. We went back to Mamie Lindsey for the sixth 00:05:00and seventh grades. The teacher was Oris McShane in the eighth grade. We combined the class ahead of me and my class and, when we graduated from the eighth grade, it was the largest class that ever graduated from one of the Beaver schools.

FH:Did you feel that your teachers were good?

EH:I use to tangle with this Barton once in awhile. I had a friend [who] was a 00:06:00regular little outlaw; that is what I called him. He was half East Indian and used to get me in some pretty tight places once in awhile. He sat in front of me and our seats were loose from the floor [so] you could move them around. One day he reached around and knocked my pencil out of my hand. I was sitting with my back against the wall and the pencil lit on part of the seat behind me. I turned around to get the pencil and he pushed his seat against me. I couldn't turn around and straighten back [up]. The teacher saw me with my back to the class and told me to turn around. I tried to and couldn't because Charley Morgan held 00:07:00me there. He told me [a] second and third time to turn around and I couldn't do it. He came back and grabbed me by the ear and tried to turn me around by my ear. I think he ruptured the eardrum because I had an awful ear for a long time after that. As soon as he got a hold of me Morgan loosened up on his desk and then I could turn. The teacher nearly got into trouble over that. I was under doctor's care for some time. I didn't dislike the teachers, but Morgan kept 00:08:00getting me into trouble like that. This is just an illustration of what he would do.

FH:Was he just a trouble maker?

EH:Yes. He was two years older than me and used to pull tricks on me. I was a rather gullible young fellow, I guess. He said, "You blindfold me and then lead me just as fast as you can run. See what kind of a sensation it is." We were going down the sidewalk from school and I blindfolded him. [I] led him for fifty yards or so as fast as I could run. Now he said. "I will blindfold you. It sure is a funny sensation." He blindfolded me and ran as fast as he could, but 00:09:00instead of keeping me on the sidewalk, he ran into the trees head on and just about killed me!

[Laughter]

One day we were sitting in the seat together in school and he had a pocket knife. He took it out and had about an eighth of an inch [of the blade] out and jabbed me four or five places in the leg with the point of that knife. He would do things like that. I would try to get away from him and the [next] thing I know he would be back [at] me again. [Laughter] He would tell the teacher that he wanted to sit with me. I would try to go home ahead of him, but he would 00:10:00catch up with me. I was afraid of him because he was two years older than me. I had an awful time with that boy. Those were some of my experiences. After I [was] big enough to assert myself, I got away from him entirely. I kept away from him and told him to keep away from me. As long as he could dominate me, he 00:11:00did. He was just that treacherous.

FH:There is [usually] one of those in every school. How far did you go in school?

EH:I went through the eight grades [and] went one year of high school. I started to go the next year, [but] they wouldn't give me the classes I wanted to take. I put all my energies in what we called the gym. Today they call it physical education. I used to walk from home which was close to three miles to the 00:12:00school. It eventually turned out to be the Murdock Academy. It started out as the Beaver Branch of the Brigham Young Academy. Then they changed it to the Beaver Branch of the Brigham Young University. The first part of the year, I would drive a buggy and haul my sister up there. She [was] tired of riding in the buggy and got a room at the old academy. The old academy used to be what 00:13:00they called Fort Cameron, [a former military base outside of Beaver]. The schoolhouses used to be the original administration buildings at the Fort. The students lived in the barracks. My sister rented a room up there and stayed [while] I walked back and forth the rest of the winter. That was when I really came out of the doldrums. I used to drive the cows about a mile out to the farm 00:14:00and then I would run back home, get my school books and run about half-way up to the school. When I would come home at night I would take gym or physical exercises and run half a mile and back.

FH:Was this how you built up your strength?

EH:That is how I built my physique. We had an inter-school contest that next spring and I won the mile race, hands down. Two other fellows and I took first, second

and third [place]. I skipped away from them [with] about one hundred yards [to go]. I thought I was a runner! [Laughter] The next year they told me I had to 00:15:00take music. They told me the classes I had to take. They said you take this, you take that. They wouldn't give me my choice. I didn't like music. My mother had bought an organ for her daughter and I used to pound on that until they [were] tired of it and told me to quit. I didn't have any music in me anyhow. [Laughter] I believed them. They wanted me to take music up there and I wouldn't do it. Two or three other classes I didn't like, so I didn't register. One year of [high] school is all I had, but the rest of my brothers and sisters all graduated from this school.

FH:Were there some [events] in your life that you considered adventurous?

EH:Yes. When I was out away from home, I would have a gun in my hand. It was a .22 [single shot rifle]. I carried the same gun for ten years. [One time], my father and my father's brother [Charles Franklin Harris] burned lime out in the mountains. My uncle, my mother's brother, was building a storage building. My father and my uncle burned the lime for this store building to lay the brick, for the mortar. While I was out there, we had to haul hay for the horses. It was 00:17:00out in the hills in cattle country. We put the hay in what you call a bull fence, [a] corral. The old bull decided [the fence] couldn't keep an old bull out, so he broke in and started eating the hay. He came in at night and went through that fence any place he wanted to and made a nice big hole. He was taking the hay from the horses so we tried to stop him. We couldn't because we had to be out hauling the wood to burn the lime and couldn't stay in camp all the time watching him. They put me on a horse and told me to take that bull and 00:18:00drive him eight miles down to Adamsville [Beaver County, Utah] where the owner of the bull lived. "See if you can't get rid of him."

I started out and had not gone more than a mile or so until a young mountain lion crossed the trail in front of me. I [had] never seen a mountain lion before in the daytime, to tell you the truth. I thought it was a long-tailed coyote and 00:19:00I shot him with this .22. I tried to follow him, but all I had was [a] single shot .22 [rifle]. All he did was turn around and bite himself [laughter] where I had shot him. I think he was a kitten about a year old. I chased him for a long ways and couldn't find him so I went back and couldn't find the bull. I went back to the camp. My dad said, "Did you get that bull down there where I told you?" I said, "Yes, I made it alright." They said, "Look up on the hill there. It looks like the same bull you started out with." [Laughter] He beat me back to 00:20:00camp! My dad was just about to give me a licking and my uncle talked him out of it. He said, "[Boys] have to be [boys]."

My uncle said, "I will get rid of that bull tonight. You just watch me." That night after dark my uncle [went] inside the corral and covered himself up with the hay. [He] waited until the bull came. He had an ax and was going to nail him! [Laughter] The bull came along and my uncle rose up with the ax. He was going to hit him in the head and the bull jumped back. My uncle hit him on the 00:21:00end of his nose and broke and shattered the nose. The old bull went down through the cedars just a bellowing. About three days later the owner of the bull came up and said, "Did you see an old bull around here with a battered up nose [and] face?" "We haven't seen the old bull around here for a number of days." He said, "My bull is a good old bull and [he] came home with his nose and part of his head all battered up. It looks like some animal tried to kill him." My uncle said, "This lad here shot and wounded a mountain lion and didn't get him. I wonder if the old bull didn't tie into that mountain lion and the mountain lion 00:22:00slapped him." "Oh, I bet that is what [happened]," said the old man. [Laughter] That was the story that went all over that country [area] -- that I had wounded the mountain lion and [it] tried to kill the bull. [Laughter]

At the same time out there, I got tangled up with a coyote. I used to be able to imitate a coyote. One time, a young coyote came up pretty close to camp and started yipping one night after dark. I got up and walked about a hundred yards from camp. I started answering him. He would yip and I would yip back at him. He kept getting a little closer and a little closer. Finally, he quit yipping and 00:23:00he was pretty close to me then. I got excited and turned around and started to go back to camp. When I turned around again, here he was about twenty feet behind me. When I started for him, he growled and snapped at me. He went in one direction and I went in the other. [Laughter] My dad and uncle said my hair was standing on end! [Laughter] I don't know where the coyote went, but we didn't talk to each other after that. [Laughter] That was the kind of life we had. We burned three kilns of lime.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

EH:After leaving school, I worked around home for a year or two. My older 00:24:00brother [Walter Smith HarrisarrisH] had been off chasing around the world and he inoculated me with the desire to do the same thing. I left home when I was nineteen [years old] and traveled practically all over the west and back to Chicago [Illinois]. I went on a tramp steamer to Australia and then across the southern seas to South America. I then came back to the United States after spending one winter there. I worked in the logging camps, saw mills, odd jobs around different places and [worked with] construction gangs on the railroad. I was [away] from home [for] nearly eight years. I took up a homestead in Idaho. 00:25:00The third year I had lived there, I went up one day to a town named Hammer [Idaho] to get mail, which was eight miles from my home. I rode up to the [United States] Post Office. There was not [any] station there, but just a side-track on the railroad. I saw the postmaster and the store keeper, who was the constable, walk out to the tracks. There was a string of boxcars on the 00:26:00side-tracks and he walked out and stood between two boxcars and looked. There was a man walking down the railroad on the other side of the tracks. The constable came back and said, "That is him alright." He went in the house and told us to stay there. "We have to get him." He brought out two pistols and two old .44 rifles that we use to call the Henry [Rifle, a forerunner of the famous Winchester Rifle]. [Both rifles] shot the same bullet a .44 pistol shoots. They weren't much better than a pistol. He handed them to us along with a couple of 00:27:00other fellows from Idaho Falls [Idaho]. The four of us went on down the tracks. I asked, "What is going on, anyhow?" He said, "This fellow shot and killed the conductor on the train and they are hunting for him all over the country [area]. We want to go get him."

We started down the track after him and got within 150 yards of him. The constable said, "Halt!" The fellow kept on going and then Bailey said, "I told 00:28:00you to halt!" The fellow looked over his shoulder and said, "I don't know you." Bailey said, "I will show you who I am!" He pulled up his old .44 gun and shot. The bullet [hit] the ground about half or two-thirds of the way to the outlaw and the outlaw started to run. Bailey shot a second time and we don't know where the bullet went. This outlaw, Whitney was his name, was carrying his coat in his right hand, but had it thrown over his left shoulder carrying it this way. When he was shot at the third time he dropped his coat and started to run. We found 00:29:00out later that the bullet had passed through the coat on top of his shoulder and then he dropped the coat.

As far as we knew, he had been three days without anything to eat. He had stopped at a farmer's place just before he [went] to Hammer and bought a couple of sandwiches. Those sandwiches were still in his coat pocket when he dropped it. We started chasing him and Deputy Bailey was kind of fleshy and fat. We ran 00:30:00him through the sand and he soon [was] out of breath. He said, "You fellows keep after him and I will go back to the house and telephone for the posse." They had a posse out with the sheriff and four or five deputies and four bloodhounds. They were trying to trail him sixty miles up the railroad where he got off the railroad. They couldn't trail him. He said to keep him in sight and not to let him get away entirely. He would get the posse there to help. Bailey handed his 00:31:00rifle to one of these other boys and stuck his pistol in his waistband. That was the last we saw of the pistol because he lost it somewhere! [Laughter]

We started after him and we had these two old .44 rifles and the .44 pistol. The pistol that was lost was a .38. It was a better shooter than a .44 was. We would run him a-ways and then he would hide in a pot hole. The pot holes up in that country in the lava is what we call an amphitheatre. That is anywhere from 00:32:00two-acres to twenty-acres and usually had an outlet at the lower end. It was almost like an amphitheatre. He would run down there and hide where the brush was tall and then go out the lower end and run again. We cornered him in two or three places like that. The last [time] he got down in the brush, I told the fellow by the name of Haskins from Idaho Falls to go to the lower end, watch him and pick him off when he went by there. We shot at him and shot at him. We couldn't hit him. We watched for awhile and he didn't come out. He hid in the brush and stayed there. I decided I would root him out. He had never shot at us 00:33:00or returned the fire at all. I thought he was out of bullets so I got down in the brush to root him out. The first thing I hear is -- PING went a bullet and cut the rim of my hat. I decided maybe he could still shoot. [Laughter] I dropped to the ground and Whitney got up and ran again. He ran into another pot hole about a quarter of a mile from there. That was the time I told Haskins to go down and head him off.

We were watching and trying to find him. We didn't want him to get back down in the brush anymore. We were standing up on the rim watching for him when two men 00:34:00from Hammer rode out. They were the neighbors [who] had sold the outlaw all the sandwiches. One of them was on my horse and the other was on a three-legged mare horse that could just touch one crippled leg to the ground, just enough to balance. He would go hopping along just about as fast as you could walk. The young lad by the name of McGill rode up and said, "I saw him. I will go get the s-of-a-b!" We said, "Where is he?" He said, "Up here on the rim." We said, "No, he is not. He is down in here!" He said, "I saw him over here." We said alright 00:35:00go that way anyway and get in front of him and head --

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE ONE]

EH:-- him off because we want to hold him here. Whitney had sneaked up on top and crawled up there on his belly. We were watching for him down in the hole. He rode up with another old .44 rifle. You could throw a rock just as straight as you could shoot with one of those old rifles. Anyhow, he had a magazine full of shells and he threw three out. I took two to put in my .44 pistol and the other fellow took one and put it in his .44 gun. When young McGill rode up on the outlaw he rose up out of the brush and told him to throw up his hands. Instead 00:36:00of doing that, the [outlaw] lowered his gun without throwing it to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. Of course, he missed and then Whitney shot him and he wasn't over thirty feet from [him] and he shot him in the groin. [He] fell off 00:37:00of the horse and the gun went on one side of the horse and he went on the other. The horse was what we called groan tied. The reins were not tied very loose so when they dropped on the ground the horse would stop. The horse was trained that way and stopped. Whitney walked up to the [outlaw] and said, "I will send you on a long journey." He pointed the gun right at the young McGill's heart and pulled 00:38:00the trigger. The bullet struck his breast bone under the left nipple and went between the breast bone and the skin and came out under the muscle of his right arm.

Whitney had a Lugar automatic; one of those sixteen-inch barrels or twelve-inch barrels. He picked up the rifle, caught the horse and got on him. Just as the shootings happened, young McGill's father rode up with a coffee pot full of 00:39:00water for us. It was a hot day and we had been running and we needed the water. I had my back turned when I heard the shooting and I turned just in time to see young McGill fall off of his horse. Young McGill's father said, "My goodness, he has killed my boy! Give me a gun!" He tried to grab my pistol and I said, "You can't shoot him with that pistol." He said, "Give me that gun!" He got a hold of the rifle and shot three shots at Whitney. Whitney shot three shots at us. The 00:40:00young McGill said his dad just about hit him when the bullet kicked dirt over him while he was lying on the ground. That was the closest he got to Whitney. That was all of the shells Whitney had in his gun and that was all of the shells in the gun we had. There were three shells in my pistol so when I saw Whitney was getting away, I decided to shoot the horse because I had a better chance of hitting the horse than Whitney. I steadied the pistol over my knee and shot and hit the ground under the horse's belly. I raised the point of the gun and shot and he ducked his head this way. He sent word back that he was going to get the 00:41:00son-of- a-gun [who] shot him. I can't remember what he told them, but I think I hit him on his back someplace. He rode off and left us there with no shells, a crippled horse and the wounded boy. I could outrun the old horse.

I guess we waited there for about an hour until the posse came from up north. They had a special train that had their dogs, horses and camping outfits. They 00:42:00got there and came on out. We flagged down a freight train that was going through and got their stretcher. We were about a half mile from the railroad. We [took] the stretcher out of the caboose of the freight train and carried it up to the wounded boy, put him on it and carried him back to the caboose. They took him on to the Blackfoot Hospital [Idaho]. He was a railroad worker and they were taking care of him.

Whitney rode off with my horse and we went back to Hammer. We got there just as the posse arrived. We told them Whitney had gotten away from us. Whitney had gotten on the road, or right near the road, that leads cross-country over the Menan [Idaho] country. It crosses the Snake River into Menan farming country. The sheriff called the deputy sheriff in Menan and told him to get to that river 00:43:00bridge and take the outlaw before he crossed the bridge. The deputy's name was Scott. He started out by himself. I heard the sheriff tell him there was a $3,000.00 reward out for him for killing the train's conductor and wounding a 00:44:00deputy sheriff up at High Bridge. That was sixty miles from Hammer. Scott decided he would go get that reward for himself. The sheriff told him to take plenty of help along because [the outlaw] had already killed one man and wounded a couple more and he wouldn't hesitate to shoot anyone.

Scott got part way and decided maybe he had better get some help so he stopped at a farmhouse and [found] two boys to go along with him. He put them on the side of the bridge that Whitney would come to first. He got on the other side and got off of the approach to the bridge and down in the willows. There was an 00:45:00old shack on the side of the river where these [boys] were. They were so nervous and scared that they tore up the boards on the floor of the shack and got down under the floor. We found them there. [Laughter] When Whitney came along, Scott didn't stop him until he got clear off the bridge and onto the approach. Scott had a double-barrel shotgun and he had it pointed in the air. He told Whitney to halt. Instead of halting, he whirled around with his six-shooter and shot. He hit the gun between the two barrels and the bullet went down the barrel of the 00:46:00gun and clipped off the trigger guard and Scott's trigger finger. When we came along, Scott was still there counting his fingers. He said he would like to breakfast on that suckers [inaudible]. [Laughter] Oh, he was a foul-mouthed old fellow. [Laughter]

Whitney rode on clear across the Snake River and up on the hills on the other side and got away entirely. The county had me follow him up and try to find my horse. I followed his trail all the way into Soda Springs [Idaho]. He [went] to [a] sheep camp and traded horses, but I never found my horse. I did find the horse he [had] at the sheep camp. He took the horse out in a grove and killed 00:47:00it. [He] went on with his saddle, got on the train in Soda Springs and went into Wyoming. That was the last we saw of him. There were all kinds of rumors about him. He joined up with a band of outlaws up in that wild country and terrorized that [part] of the state for four or five years and then he disappeared. We [heard] rumors about him being in South America and [that] somebody shot him in San Francisco [California] down on the Gold Coast. There were all kinds of rumors. Thirty years later it was in The Deseret News that he lived in Wyoming 00:48:00peacefully until he died of old age. His brother told [who] he was and [that] he couldn't keep it to himself.

FH:That is a real story!

EH:[Laughter] I sent that [story] to the Reader's Digest. I thought I would get a personal reward out of it, but they said it wasn't appropriate.

FH:Was it long after this that you [were] in military service?

EH:I was gone about eight years. I went back to the Pacific Northwest and worked in the sawmills for about a year and then I went home. I was home for about two 00:49:00years before I [was] in the [United States] Army. My father had a 120-acre farm that only had forty acres cleared ground. I helped him clear the rest and put it in cultivation. I went into the Army in 1917. I went home the latter part of 1914, if I remember right.

FH:Do you want to tell about your military experience?

EH:There is a long story about that. [Laughter] Yes, I can tell some of it. I told one story to the World War I veterans two years ago. The state commander hunted me up last summer and wanted to know if I would go to the state convention or the United States Convention and tell [my] story. It was as long as this one, maybe a little longer. I better not tell too many stories! I was 00:51:00drafted in 1917 and went in the first draft. I had been to see my wifearri a time or two in Oak City [Millard County, Utah]. I was living in Beaver at the time.

FH:Was this before you were married?

EH:Yes, before we were married and before I [went] in the Army. We did our courting by mail. She came down to San Diego [California] when I was at Camp Kearney. [She] was there two weeks after we were engaged. She came home and I 00:52:00went on. We figured we shouldn't get married until after I [was discharged from] the Army.

FH:What is her name?

EH:[Her name is] Silva Ann Lovell. She lived in Oak City. Her family and father [John Edmund Lovell] are [some] of the original locators of Oak City. When I was drafted, I went to [Fort] Lewis, Washington. I put in about three winters in and around Washington. I put in one winter in Southern California and when they 00:53:00called for volunteers to transfer to Camp Kearney, I was the first one to volunteer because I knew the difference in the climate between the two places. You can't compare the two places to spend the winter. I went to Camp Kearney and stayed there all that winter. How much time do you want me to spend on the Army?

FH:Tell a little bit about [your experience].

EH:There is quite a bit about it, if I give [all] the details. When I [arrived] there we all [were put] into the 145th Field Artillery. It was the Utah National 00:54:00Guard. They were a depot to supply replacements. They didn't get across the water until about a month or two before the [World War I] Armistice was signed. They had an officer's school there and were making a lot of lieutenants [who] didn't have to go through Annapolis or West Point. They were commissioning them right there at the officer's school. They had given a commission to a fellow 00:55:00[who] had been a neighbor to me [near] Beaver. [It was] about twelve miles south of there at Buckhorn [Flat, Iron County, Utah]. The fellows name was Crocker. I was a neighbor of his and he kind of picked on me, but he was an old scout. They selected him to be the map maker and general all-around scout. He would hunt up places for gun positions or camps for scouting positions, expeditions and [events] like that. We did a lot of observation work. When they were shooting 00:56:00the guns they had to have him out observing the results of the shooting of the cannon. Since I was a neighbor of his, he would pick on me to help him.

We were in [the] headquarters company and there weren't enough buck privates to do regimental guard work, [so] we had to guard our own horses. Buck privates were so few that we would get guard duty about every third night. I was out riding with him [almost] every day picking out camp sites, routes to go on our 00:57:00hikes and places for the gun positions when they were out practicing shooting. I was drawing maps of the terrain and all that outside work. Besides riding a horse all day, I had to ride military style. That was different from how I had ever ridden. All in all, I [was very] tired of horses. I would have to take care of his horse when I got back. He wanted me to be his dog "Rover", but I wouldn't do it. Anyhow, he took me along for observation work on these sites. In the 00:58:00meantime, we were studying firing data, map drawing, telephone, wigwag [and] semaphore. We were practically studying officers [material].

Twice a day we had to groom those horses. We used to curry them when we were home, but [now] you were in the Army and you had to groom them. A sergeant or non-commissioned officer would stand behind your horse. They did it backwards of what [I was] used to doing. They would groom the legs first and then they 00:59:00groomed the upper part of the body. The dust and dirt would fall back down on the legs again. [Laughter] He would stand back behind us with a watch and you would groom the legs for ten minutes, then you would groom the front part of the body for another ten minutes and then you would groom the other for ten minutes. [Laughter] I [was] tired of that!

We stayed there all winter. Along in June they transferred a whole company, 225 of us, to Europe. I [was] in on that. They had three artillery regiments there and two of them were from California. One was the California Regular and one the 01:00:00California National Guard and the Utah National Guard. We were the 145th and they switched officers. [They] took one out of the 143rd and put in the 145th and took one out of the 144th and put him in the 143rd and from the 145th they put one in the 144th. The one [officer] we drew was an old poet, a man of literature. He was so high-hat he slurred his r's. He made a remark that he was going to show these Mormons how to be soldiers before he got them there. Of 01:01:00course, the ones [who] transferred were the incorrigible and slow ones. I don't know what they thought I was. I got in on it. [Laughter] They weren't the best soldiers, I know that. It took us a week to go from San Diego to Camp Merritt, New York on the train. Every time we would stop, the old fellow would have us out doing right and left marching and exercises. [Laughter] He would get out and 01:02:00give us a cadence. He would say, "One, two, three, four hip, hip, hip." [Laughter] He would get up in the front of the column and we in the rear would start mocking him. Then he would stop and come paddling back to the rear. By the time he got back there, the ones in front would start mocking him. We pulled that on him all the way across [the country]. By the time we [arrived at] Camp Merritt, he was just like a porcupine, [inaudible] all over. [Laughter]

They put me in the supply office and we worked there until midnight getting 01:03:00supplies ready to go on the boat for a number of nights. As a reward they gave me and another fellow a pass to New York [City, New York]. They told us we had to be back in time for reveille the second morning. We didn't get back until that second morning. We didn't get back the night before although we started out in plenty of time to get there, but something went wrong with the streetcar. We 01:04:00were twenty minutes late getting there. They made me sergeant the day before we left. We weren't there for reveille so they broke me back and put me on hard labor detail indefinitely. On the train we had formed a quartet and we did quite a bit of singing there. The sergeant-in-charge of our section promoted this quartet. Anyhow, he interceded for me after being on hard labor detail for a couple of weeks. He got me out of that. We went to England first and stayed there for three days and then crossed the [English] Channel to France. We were 01:05:00there for three days and then went to Southern France. They broke us up and sent us to different outfits.

When the California officer [who] was in charge of us bid us farewell, he said, "Boys, I never expected a bunch of soldiers could possibly give a man as much hell as you gave me." [Laughter] He started drinking on the boat. It was a [inaudible] boat and you could buy as much whiskey as you wanted. He started drinking and was drunk most of the time while crossing the water. He pulled all kinds of things on us, in retaliation, I guess. They gave him a choice of either 01:06:00being broke to a non-commissioned [officer] or to go back to the states and retain his grade. They just wouldn't have him in the Army. They knew if he stayed and went to the front he would get shot in the back. They were sure of that. He told us he was going back to the states [to] hold on to his rating. I don't know what happened to him. Harding was his name.

FH:Did you get to the front line?

EH:Three days after we were separated and sent to our outfit I was never far 01:07:00away from the front but that I could hear the guns roar until the Armistice was signed.

FH:About how long was that?

EH:We arrived] there the latter part of July and I was there until the Armistice was signed [on November 11, 1918]. I was there around four months up at the front. I was in the Second Division. They were shock troops and they had to be shocked about every third day. The [United States] Marines were in the Second Division, one regiment, I mean. I [had] all kinds of experience at the front. We 01:08:00would get back far enough to delouse us once in awhile. [Laughter] We would have to have new clothes. We never [were] out of the hearing of guns. I [was] there just as they stopped the German drive on Paris [France]. I don't remember the date.

We [were] right there where the Germans were retreating so fast that they weren't putting up any resistance. The Germans were coming down the highway four 01:09:00abreast in closed columns. We couldn't get up the road. We had to get out in the fields. We couldn't get in with the artillery. We had engineers and the light machine guns and they [were] up in position ahead of the Germans. The Germans were coming down the road in formation. Then the scouts sent word back that there was someone just ahead of them. They started to deploy and came up over the ridge and our machine guns just mowed them down. When I went to the outfit they stopped on the road about a half mile from our --

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE TWO]

EH:-- camp. I could walk back to my camp on dead Germans from there and not step on the ground. They just slaughtered those Germans. They had the others to deploy and nobody had the sense to change their orders. Company after company walked out on that ridge and the machine guns mowed them down. That is where they stopped the Germans and started their retreat.

FH:Was that the turning point?

EH:Yes, that was the turning point. The French had quit fighting and they were rushing to Paris and so were the Germans. In another three days the Germans [would have been] close enough with their "Big Bertha" [to] lob a few shells into Paris before they had to pull back with it.

FH:Did you come home soon after the Armistice [was] signed?

EH:No, I didn't. You don't want me to finish that horse story [laughter] because it is too long! Maybe I can do it in a little while.

I [was] tired of these horses when I was in the states. When I [arrived] there they wanted to know if I wanted to go to Division Headquarters because I knew all of this tactical work, but I told them no, [that] I wanted to get on a gun 01:12:00crew. I wanted to pull a lanyard and shoot the Kaisers [Germans] and that was what I was there for. I had a friend that [went] into the Army the same time I did. He got into Division Headquarters and all he got was a desk job or taking care of a horse for an officer. That was all he did all the time he was in the Army. I went to one of their batteries, and of course they already had their gun crew so I never had a chance to get on a gun crew. They put me in a [inaudible] section and they used that entirely for hauling supplies --

[TAPE RECORDER TURN OFF]

EH;-- nothing but horse work. I told them that I didn't know anything about horses; I didn't know which end the head was on. I didn't know what a horse was. I helped haul and unload [items]. I would never look at a horse. Finally, one day we were up near the front, we were what you called the echelon, the non-combatant end of the battery. We were back in the forest and about noon my 01:14:00top sergeant told me to take his horse down to the water. I said, "I can't take that horse to water." He said, "You have to. It is no more than a half mile down there. You can walk and lead him, but you can't ride him." I said, "Well, I will try." I untied the horse off of the picket line. The picket line is a string of ropes around the trees [that] you tie the horses to. I untied the horse, turned around, got a-hold of the rope with both hands and walked backwards leading the horse. The top sergeant told me to turn around and turn my back to the horse. I wasn't going to turn my back on that cock-eyed [horse] because he would probably 01:15:00bite me or step on me. He said, "He won't touch you." I kept on walking backward and stumbled over a root, fell down and turned the horse loose. [Laughter] The horse was anxious to get up with the rest of them, but they were gone. The sergeant caught the horse before he [went] away. He said, "You turn around the other way, you need to lead him walking down there. He won't hurt you. You can't ride him; you have to lead him." I led him outside the underbrush, got on him and rode him down there with just a halter on him. I caught up with the others just about the time they [were through watering their horses. I was the last one to come back and the old horse got what he wanted to eat. They hadn't had any 01:16:00hay for three days and all they had was grain. This old fellow would walk right out in the underbrush and start eating. I had to rap him over the head two or three times to get him to go on.

When I [was] about 100 yards from the picket line, they rang the dinner gong. If you were not there when they go through the dinner line, you were just about left out. [Laughter] I just wrapped the rope around the old horse's belly and [tied him] up to the rope on the picket line. I thought everybody was in line for dinner and nobody expected that. I rode in bare-back, kicking the old horse 01:17:00and wrapped the rope around his belly. Before I [came] to the picket line, I slipped my leg over sideways and lit on the ground on the run. I ran up to the picket line, tied the rope and kicked the old horse in the stomach and said, "Git over, you old sucker!"

I turned around to run to the kitchen and my sergeant stood there looking at me with his eye bugged out this far. [Laughter] He said, "You don't know a thing about horses. You are just a circus performer." [Laughter] He said. "You will have horses after this." I said, "No, I won't. No horses for me." The sergeant of the Fifth Section had been after me to transfer to his section to teach his rookies semaphore, wigwag and telephone. I transferred to Fifth Section to get 01:18:00away from horses.

All they had was one team. They drove in four horses strung out with four lines and the rest of the teams were four horses roller driven abreast. When they were driven strung out, somebody rode one horse and drove the others with the bridle reins. They never used four lines except on one [horse] I had. It was the only team we had in the outfit. When we would start for the front, this man, Flannigan was his name, was the only one in the outfit [who] could drive the four lines. Every time we would start for the front, he would go AWOL [absent without leave]. [Laughter] They had to keep him there because he was the only 01:19:00one [who] could drive those horses. He would come back and they would give him the horses again. Ordinarily, when you went AWOL it was a prison offense and you were gone and done for. Flannigan pulled that two or three times.

After I got to Fifth Section and we were going to [inaudible]. We always traveled at night when we traveled from one place to another. We would do that so nobody could see us. We were in the woods and it was raining. You had to walk around with your hand in front of you to keep from running into the trees. They 01:20:00couldn't find Flannigan -- he had gone AWOL. [Laughter] Finally, the sergeant in the Sixth Section said, "Where is Harris? He can drive this team. He can do anything with a horse you can ask him to, or can get him to do." Just then, I got out of it. I started walking up the line, and as chance would have it, I ran into the captain and he flashed a flashlight in my face. He said, "Is that you, Harris?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Where are you going?" I told him I was looking for my outfit. He said, "You are going in the wrong direction to get shot. [Laughter] I think I can hear them calling for you back there. What do they want?" I said, "I don't know what they want." He said, "Let's go back and see." We went back and the captain said, "Here is Harris, what do you want of him?" 01:21:00The sergeant said, "Harris, can you drive this outfit?" I said, "Drive that outfit! I couldn't drive that thing!" [Laughter] The sergeant said, "He is a liar. He can drive that whole outfit." The captain said, "Harris, can you drive that outfit?" I said, "No sir." He said, "Get up there and try!" [Laughter] I [was] up there and tried and had that outfit until we [went] into Germany with it. That was the way I got away from the horses. I had four horses instead of two. [Laughter] We [went] into Germany and I was there until March the next year before I [was] discharged. I [went] to work in the automobile repair shop in the 01:22:00main school of the Army Occupation.

FH:Was this where you [received] your motor mechanics training?

EH:Yes, this is where I [received] my mechanics degree. The way it happened was: we had a boy by the name of Gus Dyer in our outfit that went over with us by the name of Gus Dyer. He is the brother to President Dyer of The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. He had just come in off [of] a [LDS] mission. He kind of palled around with me and he had a job helping in the supply office. 01:23:00When we started into Germany he made the supply officer a billeting officer. He had to pick out places for us to sleep in the camp. They made Gus the supply officer. When they would get into a camp, the billeting officer would always get a room in the hotel for Gus. Whenever you got a hotel room in Germany at that time, you would always get a woman along with it. That was just natural, that came with the room. Gus would always come and get me and say he didn't want to sleep in that hotel by himself. [Laughter] We would have to kick them out. He couldn't tell women what to do. They would come right in the room with you. We 01:24:00slept that way two or three nights on the way into Germany.

One day Gus came to me and said "Do you know anything about a typewriter?" I said, "No, I didn't know too much about typewriters, but there were not too many things I couldn't fix." I asked if there was something wrong with it. He said, yes, it wouldn't work. He asked me to come down and see what was wrong with it. I went to the office and the typewriter had a template right on the bottom. I had never seen one like that before or after. I picked it up and shook it and I heard something rattle. It was this template underneath, so I turned it upside down and took the plate off. There was a loose screw in there and I found a 01:25:00[inaudible] that just had one end tied. I put the screw back in. It was okay after that. I cleaned it once after that for him.

We were motorized. They got rid of the horses. They had to have a mechanic to take care of the motors so they asked the officers. Of course, Gus recommended me. We went to battery school, the best battery school in the regiment. They sent us to division school as a representative from this regiment. We were the 01:26:00best school in the division. They made us the corps school. We then went to [inaudible] and they had a big hill out of [inaudible] across the river from [inaudible]. There was a big fort there that was one of the strongholds in Germany. They gave us that to make a school there. We moved to [inaudible] and I stayed in that school until the next March when I [was discharged].

[Silva Ann Lovell and I] were engaged to be married before I left the states. I wrote to her nearly every day and she wrote me nearly every day. Along about 01:27:00February the battery clerk came up to me one day and asked, "Harris, would you take a discharge if they offered it to you?" I said, "Don't kid me!" [Laughter] He said, "We were supposed to ask you if you would take a discharge." My uncle, John [F.] Tolton, was a [Utah] state senator and he was quite a friend to Senator [William Henry] King. Two weeks before, I had written to my mother and asked her to go talk to my Uncle J. F. and get him to get Senator King to put in 01:28:00a request for my discharge. I was sure he could get it. It took a month for the letter to go from our Army [base] to home and the reply to get back. Two weeks after I had written, this fellow came up and asked if I would take a discharge. I thought there was something funny about it -- maybe a mistake or something. I didn't hear about that for another two weeks. Finally, they gave me my discharge. When I [went] to Army headquarters they said, "Here is that man we have been looking for so long. What is the matter? Don't you want your discharge?" I said, "Don't anybody try to stop me!" He said, "What is the matter up there? Where have you been?" I said I had been in that school. The captain was the head of the school and he had more pull than any of the generals around 01:29:00there. He had been holding me there because he was getting short on instructors.

I [received] my discharge in March, [but] I didn't get home until June 10, [1919]. It was slow getting in and getting out and I [had] a special discharge. They took their time getting us home. On the way home from Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah] I stopped and saw my girlfriend instead of going home. [Laughter] Mother never got over that. [Laughter] I saw my girl before I saw my 01:30:00folks. I [arrived] home on June 10, [1919] and we [were] married on July 9, [1919]. We married in the Manti Temple [Manti, Sanpete County, Utah]. My wife's brother [Stanley Lovell] [was] married at the same time. It was a double wedding. We had quite an excursion over there. For our honeymoon we went to Fish Lake [Summit County, Utah]. We stayed a week up there.

FH:That is a pretty time of year up there.

EH:Yes

FH:Did you do a lot of fishing?

EH:I did fish because I was the only one [who] had a fishing license. There were 01:31:00four couples up there. There were two young married [couples] and two others. There was a sister to my brother-in-law's wife and her husband and [inaudible] brother-in-law. I kept that bunch in fish and we brought home six big fellows. One of them weighed nine pounds and the others [were each about] three [pounds]. In those days, you could get fish there. [Laughter]

I went to work as an auto mechanic in Delta [Millard County, Utah after] we [were] married. We moved to Delta soon after we were married. I worked there as 01:32:00a mechanic for about ten days, as an extra, until they ran out of work and then I [found] a job in the sugar factory. I worked there for three years. My wife [was] tired of living in Delta and we moved back to -- oh, I [became] sick after our second child was born. I guess I didn't tell you about that, but I [was] gassed enough when I was in the Army that it took the enamel off of my teeth. It burned holes in my nose and I spit blood for six weeks.

FH:It sounds like you had a [very] close call.

EH:I did. I lost my voice and it took three months before I could talk above a whisper. [My voice] was just a growl. I had sores in my nose for about a year after I [was released from] the Army. That was how close I was to getting it [dying] because [it was] the carelessness of a sergeant that caused it. I better not go into that now. [The gas] killed the nerves in my teeth and they went dead. When one of them would go bad, I couldn't tell which one it was. Sometimes 01:34:00they would pull two or three teeth before they [found] the right one. They did that to me a time or two. I had to go to the hospital because [a] lower tooth was infected and it went down through my jaw and into [my] neck. I was in the hospital for two weeks or ten days because of the infection. Anyway, my wife [was] tired of Delta, so we moved back to Oak City and [were there] ever since.

FH:Talk about your children [beginning] with your first one.

EH:Shirley [Harris] was our first child. She was born while I was working at the 01:35:00sugar factory. Her mother had gone home for the occasion. I [received] a telephone call one morning after I [went] to the factory to work. They told me to come; that the time was on. I [arrived] there in time for the birth. They [our children] all went to school [in] Oak City. She [Shirley] went through all eight grades there and, instead of going to college, she wanted to be a nurse. We sent her to the LDS [Latter-day Saints] Hospital [in Salt Lake City and] she 01:36:00trained there. I paid her way some of the time, but she paid her way most of the time. She was working for wages.

She left the hospital after about a year, moved back to Delta and became the nurse for the local doctor. He had a temporary hospital in his own home. He had a building with three or four rooms. She stayed and worked for him until she 01:37:00married. She married John DeLapp. Now they live in Sutherland [Millard County, Utah just] outside of Delta. She has six children and they are all living; one is on a [LDS] mission and the rest are all home. Two of them are going to school now. She was one of the prime movers in getting the West Millard Hospital built and going. She bought all the machinery and equipment for them. She spent over $100,000.00 for equipment.

They built that hospital without any government help. They saved $40,000.00 and 01:38:00have just as good a hospital as [a] government-equipped hospital would have

been. Kennecott Copper Company sponsored them because of the fact they were doing it without government-sponsored help. We saved most of our money by selling badges to hunt pheasants. That is the biggest pheasant country [area] in the state. That is where we got the biggest share of our money. We got [some] equipment from the [Primary] Children's Hospital and the Army's Fort Douglas [both in Salt Lake City]. [A] lot of it was donations. She still works there two 01:39:00or three days a week on the average. She is our genealogist and historian for the family organization. She raised her six children and taught classes two days a week in nursing. That woman is the busiest person in my family. [Laughter]

The next [child] is Grant [Harris] arrisand he was born in Sutherland at my 01:40:00brother-in-law's [Jeff Jones] place when I was sick in the hospital. I got home the day before he was born. The week after he was born, we moved to Oak City permanently. He went through the eighth grade and then went into the [United States Navy] during World War II. [When] he [was discharged, he] graduated from BYU [Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County, Utah] with a teacher's certificate and has taught school ever since. He lives in Spanish Fork [Utah 01:41:00County, Utah]. His wife [Helen Harris] [has] a teaching certificate also. She taught school some since they [were] married. [They] have six children. The oldest child is fourteen or fifteen [years old].

The next child is Keith [Harris] and he also [was] in World War II. He wanted to be a jeweler and [received] government-sponsored [education] when he [was discharged from] the service. He went to school in Denver [Colorado] for four years and worked as a jewelry manufacturer there for two years. He came home and 01:42:00married and they moved to Provo. He married a girl [Ida May] from Denver whom he met while going to school there. He has been living in Provo ever since. He works for a wholesale jeweler there, [inaudible] Smith. It is just a sideline at the present time; he is a welder out at Geneva [Steel Works, Provo, Utah County, Utah]. He and Grant both worked at Hill [Air Force Base, Ogden, Weber County, Utah] Field at the time I was working there. They both learned to be machinists 01:43:00and welders. Keith has been in welding for the last twelve or fourteen years. [They] have six children.

Gene [Harris] was the next child. I helped her through school at BYU and she worked on the side doing odd jobs to help with her [education]. She [graduated] and taught school long enough to make enough money to go on a [LDS] mission. 01:44:00They sent her to Japan. She had taught school in Hawaii and that is where she [became] friends with the Japanese. She had Japanese children in her school and she really liked them so they sent her to Japan. She didn't give her choice, but that was her inspiration. After she came home from the mission, she taught school at BYU and met a boy [Tom Kennedy] there. He had been converted [to the church] at the school. They married and she taught school one or two years after 01:45:00she came back from her mission. They have four children and live in San Diego. He is a wholesale drug salesman. He makes more money than any of the rest of the family. [Laughter]

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE ONE]

EH:They live in San Diego and have also lived in two or three different places where he has been a salesman. He went out as a professional scouter for four or five years and then changed to be a drug salesman.

The next child is Diane [Harris]ARRIS] and we sent her to BYU. While she was going to school there, she became friends with a girl from Walla Walla, Washington. This girl talked her into going to Walla Walla to work in a canning factory in the summertime. She [was] acquainted with her future husband at that time. He was a widower and had three children. She married Elzo Porter and they 01:47:00have two children of their own. Her oldest daughter is getting married on [November] 23, [1968]. He [Elzo] is an accountant and works for Continental Can [Company]. They transferred him [to] a number of places and would raise his wages every time they transferred him until he [is] getting fairly good wages. The next move, at Christmastime, will be [to] North Carolina.

Don [Harris], our third boy, is older than Diane. He [was born] before Diane [and] has never married. He is a technician at Hill Air [Force] Base and works on computers. He is a computer expert. He studied for six years before he finally quit school and went to work. He has the technical end of it pretty well down.

That is six of my [living] children. I had a daughter [Marion Harris] die. She 01:49:00was between Diane and Don. She died when she was four years old [April 11, 1933] of acute indigestion. She ate half of a package of raisins and it was too much for her.

FH:Talk about your father, mother, brothers and sisters a little bit.

EH:My father was born in San Bernardino, California when the saints were down there to colonize that town. His name was Daniel Duane [Harris] and his father's name was Daniel [Harris]arris. My father's father and my mother's father both 01:50:00[were] named Harris and both went to San Bernardino together. They must have been together quite a bit on the way across the plains because they were in the same company going to San Bernardino. My grandmother and my grandfather [Daniel and Lydia (Harris) Harris aH arrimarried in San Bernardino. My father was born there before they came back to Utah.

My grandmother and grandfather separated over trouble he had and my father took over the family when he was twelve years of age. He was the oldest in the family 01:51:00until grandmother married again. She married a Dennis White. He only lived three or four years and then he died. My father had to take over the family again. He kept grandmother's family until he married. By that time, grandmother could take care of herself pretty well.

My mother's name was Francis Elizabeth (Tolton) [Harris]. Her folks came from England and went to St. Louis [Missouri] while the saints were in Nauvoo 01:52:00[Illinois]. Mother's father was a printer when he was in England. No, it was his father [who] was the printer there and was quite studious. My mother's father was the county clerk. They finally ended up in Beaver, Utah. Mother was born in Sanpete County. They didn't have a name [for] the town then, just Sanpete County. She met my father and they married [June 15, 1881] in Beaver [St. George].

My oldest brother [Walter Smith Harris was a] barber in Beaver, Cedar [City], Boise, Idaho [and] Long Beach, California. He died in West Long Beach, California about seven years ago.

The next one was my sister, Clara [Harris]. She went to BYU, graduated from there and taught school for about eight years before she married a fellow by the 01:54:00name of John Tennant. They had two children. They are both gone and the boy is gone and there is just one left out of that family. My sister, Clara, died years ago [on June 1, 1928].

Orville [Duane Harris] was the next one. He took over the old homestead [when I went into] the Army and [started] making plans to marry an Oak City girl. I 01:55:00decided we wouldn't live in Beaver. She wanted to live near her home so I gave up my share of the farm and let my brother have it after I had improved it. He died eight years ago [October 21, 1957]. He had three girls.

Then comes me and, after that, my brother Ambrose [Harris]. [[[arr He had trouble with my father and left home. He worked around Beaver for a number of 01:56:00years. [When] I went to Idaho and took up a homestead, he came up and lived with me for a couple of years. Then he started working around the country [area]. He died [October 9,] 1918 during the flu epidemic. He never married as far as we know because we lost track of him. He died and they sent his body home. [It cost the family $1,500.00 to ship the body.]

Edward [Daniel Harris] was the next one and we called him "Ted." He graduated from Utah State [University, Logan, Cache County, Utah] and went on a [LDS] 01:57:00mission to New Zealand. I guess he only went three years to school. When he came back from his mission, he taught school in Delta for fifteen years and then retired. After he quit teaching he went to work as a carpenter. He is still living in Delta and is semi-retired. He helps his son sell [inaudible], topaz and rock curiosities to rock stores around the country [area]. He has six children and they are still alive.

Then comes Frank [Harris]. He graduated from BYU and went into the [United States] Army during World War I. When he came out he [worked] as a carpenter or a business agent and has been one ever since. He is still identified with the [carpenter's] union in Las Vegas [Nevada] where he lives at the present time. He has two children by his first wife. His second wife has no children, [so] all he has is two children.

"Fay" or Lafayette [Harris] is the next one [and] is also a carpenter. He went 01:59:00through BYU. He is a carpenter in Imperial Beach, California and has been a carpenter almost all of his life. He is a business agent there at the present time. That takes care of the children in that part of the family.

FH:Is there anything in your own life that you think you should talk about? After you married [and] settled down, [did you] became active in the church?

EH:Yes, I [have held] a number of ward positions in the church. I have been a Boy Scout [of America leader] and twice have been a teacher in the Mutual [Improvement Association]. I taught High Priest ward groups for eleven years and I was High Priest group leader for eight years. One time I had five different [positions] in the church. They called me to [the] Stake Mutual adult department.

I was working at Hill Field at that time. They call it Hill Air Force Base now. I went there as a patrolman. I only worked there three years. It was quite interesting work, but it was a little out of my line. [Inaudible] There was very little excitement there, just routine work. I finally ended up [as a] receptionist in the headquarters building the last year I [was] there. That was where all of the big shots were.

FH:[When did] your wife [die]?

EH:My wife died four years ago, January [11, 1964].

FH:Where were you living then?

EH:We were living in Oak City. We went back there from Delta after we had been there about four years. She came up to Hill Field and worked at Hill Field for about six months while I was there. We lived in one of the trailer parks. Her sister, Lulu [Lovell], took care of the children while we were gone. Lulu is a 02:03:00second mother to all of the grandchildren of my wife's father and mother. We just did routine work at Hill Field. I don't think there was anything special about it.

FH:What did you do in Oak City when you were living there?

H:I hauled produce and sold it in Delta for seven years. Then I hauled pigs and 02:04:00other [items] to Salt Lake [City] for seven years. I brought back dairy heifer calves. I estimated I brought back close to 500 dairy calves and sold them around Millard County. I raised the level of the milk herds, milk cows, around West Millard quite a bit.

I trucked out to Ely [Nevada] for one year. No, before that I ran a school bus for seven years and [transported] school children to Delta. I was Scout master 02:05:00at the time. All in all, I put in twenty-two or twenty-three years mostly trucking and [inaudible]. Farm boys are always using a hammer and a saw, so during World War II my brother "Ted" and I decided we could be carpenters so we joined a union and became carpenters. We were that practically all of the time. I did carpenter work a couple [or] three years after that. I put in about seven 02:06:00years leveling ground. I was accredited with the Bureau of Land Management so I could do my own surveying. I would figure out the yardage on it, level it and it was accepted by the government agencies. They paid better than half enough for the work that was done. I did land leveling for seven years. I have done a variety of work. [Laughter] Since my wife died, I have decided to pay more 02:07:00attention to my church work. I decided I could do the best with temple work. I lack about ten [names] of doing 1,100 endowments.

FH:That is a good work.

EH:I have done a lot of witnessing. I have probably witnessed 20,000 baptisms, 10,000 sealings and helping, probably, 500 through the veil. That is what I have 02:08:00done in the last four years.

My health was impaired until I couldn't do anything at the time my wife passed away. [By] accident, I [received] too much penicillin and I was allergic to it. My

wife's sister [Belva] and her husband [Jeff Jones] had been going to Mesa, Arizona to do work in the temple there so they took me down there. That first winter I improved quite a bit. I have been working here in [the] St. George 02:09:00[Temple] for three years this spring.

FH:Now, after such a wonderful and varied lifetime of experiences, it would be fine if you would leave counsel for your descendants and perhaps bear your testimony to them.

EH:My advice to my children would be to be consistent. I think service is the leavening agent to a person's life. Service to mankind is the most rewarding 02:10:00thing that a person could do. [Do] not only temple work or genealogical work, but ordinary service to mankind in general. I say that a good, honest and consistent person [who] dares to walk a mile will walk an extra mile. He will always be rewarded, even financially, if you do more than you are asked to do. You will always get your reward. I think that in a business sense, especially, 02:11:00he will get his reward for doing more than he is asked to. While working for the Lord, he gets his reward on this side in satisfaction in what he does, in knowing that he is doing the Lord's work. We get our reward on the other side. I bear my testimony to you because I know this is the work of the Lord, that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord and that all of our presidents of this 02:12:00church have been prophets and revelators. Doing the work of the Lord on this side gets our reward on the other side. I know we will be happy for what we do on this side. I would like to bear

my testimony that I know this is the work of the Lord and Jesus Christ actually lives at the present time. This I do in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE TWO]